More Living Story Updates

Sorry for the lack of updates as of late. I have just been having too much fun playing the game! I did want to keep everyone up-to-date on the Living Story. I have not seen any changes in game since the patch last Tuesday. I do, however, have some new thoughts to share. And, on the Guild Wars 2 main site, there has been a posting about next months adventure. If you missed my articles on the changes from the patch on Tuesday then check out part 1 and part 2 here.

No Changes!?

Firstly, I find it strange that there was no changes at all this week. On Monday, I thought, "okay, maybe Tuesday since that is when the patch was." Now Tuesday has come and gone and there is still nothing new to report. I don't think I missed anything. I checked all the hot spots; Hoelbrak, Black Citadel, Lion's Arch, Wayfarer, Diessa, and Southsun Cove. I have yet to notice anything new. If I have missed something please be sure to let me know.

If there is not anything this week then I would implore Arena Net to work on their communications with the players a little bit more. They seem to have this awkward way of setting player expectations and then completely dashing them. I am not looking for large amounts of new content, I get that this month will be a slow one. What I am looking for is consistency. For the last month every Monday there has been something new. I have come to expect that. Now when it is not there I feel like I am the one missing something. If there were no plans to add content weekly this month a quick heads up would have helped and saved me some time.

Since my last post I did notice this (thanks to reddit). It is a new piece of ascended gear, an accessory. It's description is what is interesting.

I wonder what other dark artifacts they are conjuring. And what about their alliance makes this possible?

New thoughts on New Castle

Since there are no new stories to share I thought I would share my latest thoughts on the new castle in Wayfarer Foothills. Firstly, take a close look at the gate again.

See those square blocks with the bird symbol in the middle? My first reaction was, "Tengu?" Kind of looks like one and it even seems to show their tusks (or is that a tongue).

I probably would have ran with this, but I had another idea to check out. The only other significant bird character(s) in the game I could think of was Raven, the Norn spirit animal. So, off the Hoelbrak I went and sure enough that symbol is everywhere.

But, wait there is more. The torches on the gate look identical to the torches in Norn areas. Firstly, here is a closer shot of the torches on the gate of the new castle.

And here is a shot of the torches in Hoelbrak. This particular one is outside Bear Lodge.

In my last article on the Living Story I pointed out these wolf statues inside the walls of the castle. I was able to get a better shot of them and then I enlarged the picture. Here is the result.

Compare that with the wolf statues in Hoelbrak. They are identical expect one is rock (?) and one is ice.

The only other detail is this wolf statue. From my first image I thought it was perhaps a flat banner. I managed to get a slightly better angle. You can clearly see it is not a banner, but instead a statue of some sort.

I am not entirely sure what it is. I tried to match it to something already existing in the world and came up with these two possibilities. A random small wolf shrine,

The wolf carving above the entrance to wolf lodge,

The only other thing you can see in the castle is some fencing which seems to match this fencing found in wolf lodge (didn't see it anywhere else).

So what is up there? A shrine to wolf? If so, why? Surely this castle is controlled by the Dredge and Flame Legion? Or did the Wolfborn toss it up as a line of defence? If it was the Wolfborn how come nobody is talking about it? My only hope is that Arena Net does not try to convince me it was there the whole time. And, let me in already! I want to check it out.

Finally, I would like to show a small hole in the map that I found in Diessa. I wouldn't normal show something like this (I have already reported it to Arena Net), but I think I can fit a little bit more speculation in around this. This is where it is,

It will appears as if the "skirt" of the mountain is missing. This is what it looks like on my screen,

Once you enter the hole this is what you see in front of you,

You can not get any further as there is an invisible wall. So, why do I bother showing you this. Well, this is where I really start to stretch the available facts. Okay, so firstly, I doubt this hole has been here since launch, because, it is large and easy to spot and I have never seen it on my many journeys through the area. That leads me to think that it was introduced in the latest version of the map when they added the castle. Which then raises the question, why were they playing with that section of the map? Did they remove something? Or are they planning to add something here? Or maybe I am just crazy. Thought I would bring it up and let others see it and share their thoughts.

Flame & Frost: The Razing

The April story line has been announced. It seems Arena Net has decided to go with "The Razing" as a title. Reading the spoiler text we learn that all our suspicions about the Dredge and Flame Legion are true. They are now allied and on a rampage. According to the blog post they will be moving house by house burning everything to the ground. We are also told that two new heroes will enter the fray, a Norn by the name of Braham, and a Charr by the name of Rox.

No twists, no mention of the consortium though. Also I worry that it sounds like the players will be taking a back seat to the NPCs. One thing I learned early on in my Dungeon Master career was that players hate glory hog NPCs and much I might love them. Players hate being put into a situation where an NPC has to save them. Players want to drive the action. NPCs should be gateways to content. They should not complete the content for the players.

However, I am prejudging the content and I shouldn't do that. I do not know what will come. I just can't help but loose some enthusiasm after reading this overview. I just have to remember that with this patch comes an increase in the volume of content. That will be great and I am super excited to see where the Living Story idea goes.

Conclusions

In summary, there do not appear to be any changes to the Living Story so far since the patch. I have my eyes out and I will be sure to report here when I notice any. The new castle in Wayfarer Foothills is just as mysterious as ever, but I believe it to have been originally constructed by Norn, which begs the question, where did it come from? Finally, Arena Net announced the April story line, The Razing, which will bring with it a large chuck of new content.

Those are my thoughts, now let me hear yours. Have you noticed anything new in the Living Story since last Tuesday? What do you think of the lack of changes? Should Arena Net continue adding something every week if that is what they have been doing so far? How about the castle? Did anything I highlighted trigger any eureka moments? What do you think of it's construction? What about the hole in the map? Am I crazy with my thoughts? Finally, what do you like the sounds of the April story? Let me know what you think in the comments! We have been having some great discussions that I would love to keep going. Don't be scared to join in, ask questions, or even tell me I am a moron and have it all wrong.

17 comments:

That castle/fort *really* puzzles me. As you have demonstrated pretty conclusively, it has no imaginable connection to either the Dredge or the Flame Legion.

If I wanted to be positive I'd speculate that perhaps it's an ancient Norn edifice previously buried within the hillside, now revealed by landslips caused by whatever Dredgeworks below the surface are venting all that steam. I don't think it's that, though.

I'm afraid I think it will turn out either to be either:

a) the entrance of a dungeon that will have as little, or less, backstory or lore to explain it than the Fractals did. We'll be expected to be so pleased to have new content we won't ask any awkward questions and that expectation will be duly met.

b) something that's always been there, we just didn't notice it before. In other words, someone thought it would look good. As you point out, it's cobbled together from existing art assets.

What I'd like it to be is the gate to a whole new part of the Shiverpeaks. It won't be.

I like that explanation. The only things I could think of were, a) its a ghost castle from the ascalonian war, b) it "fell" out of the mists, c) the Norn tossed it up as a focus for the defence in the area

I do like your explanation the best though.

Like you I hope for an entrance to a new zone, particularly, one underground.

My thoughts are mostly summed up in this post, to be fair. I also found that random glitchy bit in the map. Perhaps a future Diessa entrance to whatever that fort is? To match that giant gate in Wayfarer..

Also yes, it does appear to be Norn-made. I did comment on your last post about how I suspected ANet will pull a "perception filter" explanation on us "What new castle? That one that was always in Wayfarer?" but there was an error in posting or something.

ArenaNet posted a few days ago that they had listened to player feedback and that more ANet staff were working on April/May. At this point they announced "a new Charr NPC and a new Norn NPC - as well as a villain who will be familiar to many players".

So at this point, I don't care about Braham or Rox (my brother and I speculated that the Norn NPC would be the orphan child from the Refugee Camp - angry at the dredge/Flame Legion so becoming a sort-of Batman and fighting back.. Brakman) - I care about this "familiar villain"

Who are our likely suspects? Kudu? General Molradovich? Baelfire? I mean.. I don't remember if all of these guys DIED-died or were "defeated".. I highly suspect it will be a Charr mastermind as I think it's more likely the Charr would "charm" the Dredge into a disguised slavery than for the Dredge to approach the Charr successfully. Or is there someone else? Perhaps a Consortium character we met in The Lost Shores? *cough cough*

Or finally, could they finally be approaching another GW1 hero for reference? I could think of a few ways to write a GW1 hero in as the boss for a GW2 enemy..

Just want to add for reference the quote that I'm referring to;"Aside from the Living Story main characters, we’ll also be surprising you with interesting villains, one of whom will become your personal nemesis. Again, no spoilers allowed, so I can’t tell you more than that, but you’ll recognize this sassy character when you see…um, him/her/it. "

I was thinking along similar lines for the bugged hole in the map. Looks like a set of stairs would fit perfectly into that spot. Maybe that is how the dredge will break into the castle.

It would be interesting if the Orphan boy was the Norn hero. I like your theory on that. I just don't know if Norn that young fight. I just hope they are helping us, and not the other way around. Sick of running tasks for others and I want to start making my story.

As for the enemy, I totally forgot he was even mentioned. You named the "sassy" character I would have named, Kudu, but I am not so sure. I don't believe they were defeated at the end of the Sorrows Embrace Storymode and they say they will be back. I can't think of any "sassy" flame legion. They all seem to take their burning rather seriously. I will have to think about this some more.

I don't think Braham is the orphan. Now that we've seen concept art for The Razing, I assume that is Braham.. And this annoys me substantially. They deliberately wrote in dialogue about that orphan and that's leading to nothing - unless they pull a Salma on him and change his model.

Similarly with Rox. We know she's a Blood Legion soldier working with Rytlock on the matter. I doubt there will be a further backstory to her.

I meant to ask you guys. What's the deal with "Lost and Found"? Only two items have spawned and I can't find the others. Permanently stuck on 2/6?

By the way, following up my comments in your previous post, the Flame Legion are wearing dredge armor (Sorrow's Embrace dungeon armor, to be specific.) I dunno how to upload screenshots, but those are definitely the SE dungeon armor.

I call it "Dredge armor" but it's the armor worn by Inquest in Sorrow's Embrace. So I'm starting to strongly suspect Inquest influence.

Dunno about you guys but I thoughroughly enjoyed The Razing last night. I played through solo and it felt so much like GW1 missions. "Active cutscenes" instead of just "conversations", teaming up with an NPC companion, rolling dialogue as you played instead of having to have it all through cutscene dialogue etc etc.